inquiry into those mysteries that is the Emulation of Angels to pry into if a man hath Honour this Power makes it a Champion for the Patronage and Lustre of Religion it Humbles him to fling down his Coronet at the feet of the Lamb and Advanceth him because he hath something the world hath an Esteem for to Deny for his Saviour which is beyond the Proportions and possibilities of ordinary Christians if he hath Riches this Power turns his Almoner feeds the Hungry cloaths the Naked Erects Hospitals builds Schools of Learning and makes his life the definition of the Law of Charity all his measures in religion are laudable and transcendent not onely thrust down and shaken together but running over But do not these Gloryes of the Power of Godliness discourage those that are weak in grace I answer that it may be propounded as a Probleme that the New-born Babe hath more strength then the Old man the infancy of grace is more powerfull then the Decrepid Age of an inveterate Lust as there is more vigour in a few Drops of Spirits then a great quantity of water so there is in the smallest seed and sparkle of Godliness then the greater measures of Corruption for this seed grows in the midst of all the Tares that would choak it and this sparkle lives in the midst of all the waters that would extinguish it and the smoaking Flax and bruised Reed break forth into Victory against all the Winds and Tempests that oppose them which strange vigour doth not arise from the immortality of any Grace in it self but from the supplies of that spirit that is greater potentior saith Beza stronger in us then he that is in the world I shall conclude all by an instance how to reduce the Habit of Love that Powerful and Operative Grace into act which when it is once Kindled in the Bosom of a man he finds his Heart like the Disciples going to Emaus burn in the flames of a most Seraphical Affection The Master of the Sentences denies any habit of Love in the soul but asserts that all its Emanations flow immediately from the Person of the Holy Ghost but seeing the Apostle expressly distinguisheth between the habit of Love and the Spirit as between the Effect and its Cause when he tells us That the Love of God is shed abundantly in our Hearts by the Holy Ghost and the Acts of this Love are Defined to be the Fulfilling of the Law the Bond of Perfection and the end of the Commandment we may reduce this habit into act by Examples and Arguments 1. By Argument Enter then O my soul into those Galleries wherein the King of Glory Walks and is Detained and Observe how he hath commended his Love toward thee All the Dimensions of his Love its Height Length Depth and Breadth are so many Topicks to perswade and allure thee to be Espoused to him as thy Bridegroom The heighth of this Love is Extasie that God over all blessed for ever equal to the Father in whom are hid all the Treasures of wisdom and Knowledge whom the Angels worship should have his heart Ravished with a Creature polluted with Blood defiled with Sin subjected to Damnation that when thou wast upon the Precipice of Ruine stretched forth his hand to save thee and draw thee into his Bosom Canst thou O my soul forbear to say with the beloved Disciple To him that Loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood and hath made us Kings and Priests unto God To him be glory and dominion for ever and ever The depth of this Love was humility he humbled himself to assume our nature in the Form of a servant to bear our miseries and become obedient to death David and Jonathan were a famous pair of Lovers Jonathan who was heir apparent to the Crown Knew David was designed for it by the Almighty yet was faithful to him in his secrets sollicitous for him in his Dangers and gave him his hand to advance him to his own Throne But the Love of Christ is without a Parallel That supream power should assume the Form of a Servant infinite glory should submit to a Reproach exquisite Purity should suffer imputed sin that the Son of God's Complacency should bear the Viols of his Wrath should descend from heaven come out of the Bosom of his Father to enter into a Grave what greater token of his Love could he give thee then his Agony his Blood his Life Surely O my soul thou art harder then Iron if this Loadstone will not draw thee Well might Solomon rifle all the Rarities of Nature to be Symbols of this Love to which the whole Creation is not sufficient to be an Allegory For greater Love then this hath no man then to Lay down his Life for his friend but herein he commended his Love to us that while we were sinners he died for us Consider the High Priest of our Profession hanging on the Altar of his Cross with his arms stretched wide open to receive thee and canst thou forbear Leaning on his Breast and prying into the secrets of his Love the Knowledge of which passeth Understanding The Breadth of this Love is Universality so immense it is that it hath mercy for thousands a Plenteous Redemption salvation to the uttermost he tasted death for every man and Laid down his life for the world No man ever perished for want of Bounty or Bowels the Passion or Compassion of a Saviour but because his sensual Part is offended at Christs Cross and commands Consider then O my soul how delectable are his Laws how glorious his Cross Obedience is essential to Love and where it is habitual there is as much Pleasantness in his Precept as there is Sweetness in his Promise if thou prefer profit with Judas pleasure with Zimri honour with Diotrephes an Obliquity before a Right path thou dost not only sin against the Precept but the Grace of God that would assist thee to observe it Faith looks at a future Retribution but love immediately at the Merit of the Law-giver and the kindness of his Commands and if the Amabilities of them were once presented to thee it would be as uneasie to thee to be vicious as it would be to a vicious Person to be Devout thou wouldst see Liberty in his Yoake and Lightness in his Burden it would be as a Wing to a Dove an help in motion as Ballast to a ship an hindrance against fluctuation As his Commands are Pleasantness so is his Cross peace our Saviour to commend his Love to us consulted not the Dignity of his person the Tragedy of his Passion but longed for his Suffrings thirsted after his Cup hungred after that Passover which he was to eate with such bitter herbs Esteem then O my Soul but all things as Dross to know the fellowship of his sufferings which are Seals of thy Adoption Pledges of Gods paternal Love and and work an eternal weight of Glory The length of this Love is eternity it s an antient Love from everlasting he loved us first its durable to everlasting he loved us to the end it is not Critical or Captious to take offence at every lapse or Omission And if it be lawfull to speak of the Duration of God by the Measures of time this Love was as great in the first Moment as it can be to Eternity for then did the admirable and astonishing Wisdom of the blessed Trinity consult the Salvation of thy Precious Soul by the Incarnation and Passion of the Son of God when the fallen Angels were left in a State of irrecoverable Perdition That he that is Glorious in holiness should be a Sin and a Curse for us by the Projects set up from everlasting is so stupendious a Depth that unless it had been manifested in the Gospel had been the highest Blasphemy to imagine it and what the Wisdom of the three Persons did contrive the Love of the second did bestow he loved us and gave himself for us Thou must then O my Soul either account all this a Golden Dream or a well devised Fable or else not suffer the world to be a Rival in thy Estimation and Affection with the Son of God if these meditations be seriously beleived and judiciously weighed thou canst not Expostulate what is thy Beloved more then another Beloved who is the cheifest among ten thousand altogether Love and altogether Lovely 2. Converse with divine Objects and Examples As Flame Kindles Flame so doe examples excite Love and Objects not only Attract the heart but Ravish and Transform it if David muses the fire will burn if Moses be in the mount his face will shine the Butterfly doth adorn her self and the Bee enrich her self by dwelling on the Flowers of the feild if a Ray of Love may spring from a Glance how much more from a Vision face to face a full contemplation of the beauty of holiness I shall consider but three freinds of the Bridegroom and their Delicious Intimacies with him Mary Magdalen she loved much and kissed the feet of Christ to acknowledge her subjection to him she washed them with her Tears and wiped them with the Haires of her head if there wâ—re virtue in touching the Hemme of his Garment much more in kissing his feet that were so Beautifull that his very foot-stool was glorious and the Throne of Grace St. John we may say kissed the hands of Christ to acknowledge his Dependance on him whose hand was the great instrument of Bounty whose Bosom in which he Lodged the Treasury of Grace and Cabinet of secrets where he had the misteries of the Kingdom of Heaven revealed to him could a man choose a diviner mansion or inhabite a better Tabernacle The Spouse kissed the Lipps of Christ to show her Communion with him Those Lipps that had Grace powred into them and spake the Words of eternal Life such Examples will excite the heart to Emulation and make it sick of Love I will give him then ten thousand Kisses and embraces I will serve him praise him Trust in him till my love is consummate by being for ever with the Lord And then O my Soul if he should aske thee as he did Peter Simon Bar Jonah Lovest thou me thou wilt answer as he did Lord thou knowest all things thou knowest that I love thee By this instance we are directed to exercise any other Grace of the Gospel FINIS
it seems not to work by Love in the feeling of Communion by casting Beams on the Members of that Body whose Head is Christ a Form then is acceptable to God being serviceable to the Communion of Saints and instrumental to the Honour of his own Name God requires the service and subjection of the whole man the Life and the Language the Mind and the Mouth the Faculties of the Soul and the Organs of the Body to glorifie God even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ Gratitude to God and Charity to our Brother engage us to a Form of Godliness the first makes us speak Honourable things of God the second thing Necessary for Man Instruction to the ignorant Reproofe to the vicions Comfort to the disconsolate when the Channels of the divine spirit are as open as the Fountaine is free and Festival As the Beneficence of God to the body and soul requireth the integrity of the whole man who hath created and blessed both So he hath created and blessed the Body in that Dependance on and Communion with the Soul that while there is Humility in the Heart it will bend the knee in adoration where there is desire in the Reines it will lift up the Hands in uncessant Supplications where there is Joy in the Mind it will open the Mouth to shew forth its praise Our Baptismal Vow doth oblige us to confess the Faith of Christ crucified which in the dayes of Persecution was an eminent act of Fortitude and resolution Christ crucified was to the Jewes a Stumbling Block and to the Greeks foolishness yet Lactantius tells us that the Primitive Christians had the signe of the Cross drawn on their Fore-heads in most orient Blood to perswade Infidels to beleive that they were built upon the Jewish Stumbling stone and dignified with the Grecian obloquy The beauty of a Form is commended to us by these Perswasions as the Glorious Attire of Godliness yet this Attire is to be fitted and adapted to the power I shall therefore superadde Rules to direct the Form by the Power Have no collateral Respect or Sinister Design at thine own honour advantage or reputation in thy Professions and Forms of Godliness It is an Argument of a low and a loose a mercinary and a disingenuous spirit for a man to pretend Gods Glory when he intends his own God will have it all to himself that no flesh should glory in his presence we are to lay down our Carnal Excellencies when we take up a Spiritual Profession St. Paul gloried not in his own Labours but in the Love of God I laboured more then they all yet not I but the grace of God that is in me I live yet not I but Christ liveth in me much like that Expression when he tells us that when he doth what he hates it is not I but sin that dwelleth in me So that as to his personal condition when the sum total is cast up as to Grace and Concupiscence it amounts but to two Ciphers set one against another as he doth justly excuse his Infirmities so he doth modestly refuse the honour due unto his Graces Avoid all conceited Tones affected Accents and Antick Gestures in thy Profession and Form of Godliness these Ridiculous things are sufficiently confuted by a mimical Derision for there is a Behaviour becoming Holiness when we Profess as Saints we should Act as Men some move in an higher Sphere and place Religion in the frequent Repetitions of Jesus Christ and the holy Spirit of God when they have lusciously ingeminated these names which are onely to be mentioned with Reverence and Trembling they think they have witnessed a good Confession but some are paramount and vilifie all things that are not a pretence to Revelation and a Lofty Language as the Valentinians in Irenaeus despised the usual Dialects of other men using Exotick Idioms the bold and boasting phrases of Barbarians such we meet with in the discourses of Jacob Behman and Van Helmont in the inscriptions and pages of the books of Quakers which they call the bosom of God the outward openings of inward shuttings Godded with God Christed with Christ beams of approaching glory These swelling words of vanity are unknown to the Scripture and contrary to the simplicity that is in Christ Let not the Form exceed the Power or be as the Shadows of the Evening Longer then the substances on which they do depend Virgil gives several signs of an approaching night That then the Toads begin to croak and crawl about The Shepherds return home and the Shadows of the Mountains grow Long. Have we not had these ill Symptoms that our day is far spent doe not Sectaries meet together in Numbers Are not some Pastors suspended from executing their Charge is not the Kingdom of Darkness highly advanced we may guess it to be Midnight by the Dreams and Illusions and pretended Visions of some Enthusiasts Our Saviour condemned the Generation of the Pharisees that curtail'd the Law and made broad their Phylacteries who when they Fasted disfigured their faces by distorted Mouths and pensive Countenances as if deformity were the Form of Godliness Suffer not the form to be of equal Extension with the power because it is apt to Degenerate and become Excessive There are some eminent Devotions that are as the Sun in the Meridian the Shadows are small and they enter into a Closet as a Recess from humane Observations and there are Humiliations wherein we are to anoint our Faces to make them Shine and when they shine as Moses did we are to veyl them though it be by an Irradiation from God We are instructed to this by the Windows of Solomons Temple that were narrow outwards but broad within and Receptive of light by the Temple it self that was conspicuous indeed without but the Guildings and Magnificences were internal by the Sanctuary that was Veiled but within were the Altar and Oracle the Propitiatory and Mercy-Seat the Cherubims and God that dwelt between them by the Heavens whose Appearance to the Earth is an azure Canopy emboss't with Clouds and glittering stars but within there is God and Jesus the Mediator of a new Covenant an innumerable Company of Angels and the Spirits of just men made perfect that reign with him in immortal and everlasting Glory Let thy form keep a constant Tenour in heavy as well as Halcion dayes when Jerusalem flourished in the dayes of Alexander the Samaritans worshipped at her Temple and came to warm themselves at the High Preists fire but when Antiochus had Ransackt the City and Sacred Treasuries then they blessed themselves at mount Gerizim in the Denyal of the God of Israel when Christ multiplyed the Loaves he multiplyed his followers who would have taken him by force and made him King They thought his Territoryes would be Opulent his Feilds and Vineyards fertile that his Jewish Subjects needed not to travel to Egypt in the dayes of Famine but that his Monarchy would infinitely exceed that of
Church and the Rights of his Brother how infamous must the way of Balaam be in the opinions of men who said he would not curse Israel for an house-full of Silver and Gold crying out how good are thy Tents O Jacob and thy Tabernacles O Israel Praying that there might be no Divination against Jacob or Inchantment against Israel yet all this holy Discourse and heavenly Resolution was but a Varnish to a deceitfull heart that was Brib'd with filthy Lucre and the Wages of unrighteousness can a Dogs neck more desecrate an Altar or the image of an Adonis a Temple then for a man to fling out his Invectives against sin and yet to indulge those that are contributary to his Lust and Avarice what are the Prayers of these men but so many Practical Lyes told to heaven who while they pray with a tacite Blasphemy defie God and when they sin by open Atheism deny him and the Votaries are as certainly the Captives of the Devil as they are the creatures of God Avoid those sins that are inconsistent with a Form of Godliness which may be reduced to a tripartite Division Some hinder the Assuming of a Form others Blast it whilst it is Professed and others do Renounce it and Cast it off The sins that hinder the Assuming of a Form are Prejudice and Fear Prejudice against the Precepts that command us to cut off the Right hand which is interpreted the Mutilation of the Body as Fervency of Spirit is the Calenture of the Soul the Communicating and Doing good the Wasting the Estate and being Evil spoken of for the Name of Christ the Wounding the Reputation these are the Grievous Commandments of an Hard Master to which in stead of Binding them to mens Fingers they give them a Manumission and with the Young man in the Gospel Go away and with Orpah salute and forsake together Fear if with Scylla they could see a Crown on the Liver of the Sacrifice the Wages of Godliness the Divinations of Riches and Honour they would become Disciples but when they Observe all that will live Godly in Christ must suffer Persecution and through many Tribulations we must enter into the Kingdom of heaven they are offended at the Cross of Christ they think there is a Lyon in the way that affrightens them from any Essay of walking in them These sins hinder men from being Catechumens but which is worse some that are Baptized blast their Profession by a Flagitious Life live without God in the world that it had been better for them they had never known the Way of Truth Such are they that think it below a Brave Spirit to tremble at a Threatning but stifle the Warnings of their own Bosom and live in Chambering and Wantonness Rage and Riot Swearing and Uncleanness that a man without the Breach of Charity may say they have no Faith But Apostacy from Faith and Obedience does Obliterate all the Characters of a Form and makes Shipwrack of Profession and renounceth Communion with the Visible Church There were three sorts of these Apostates in the times of St. Cyprian the Traditores that gave their Bibles in stead of their Bodies to be burnt the Thurificati that offered Incense to Idols and the Libellatici whose Denials of Christ were more Private and Auricular but bought Tickets from the Magistrates to preserve them from that Bloody Inquisition Now an Apostate cannot be an Hypocrite for he is gone out of the Precincts of the Church They went out from us because they were not of us saith St. John they have broken themselves off from that Body into which they were implanted by Baptism and are Strangers to the Covenant of Promise Thus we see the Dignity and Defection of a Form how it is to be exercised suspended and moderated and how to direct its course between a Rude and Rigid Zeal and a loose and Sceptical Profession we see the Grounds and Gradations of its Dishonours and Decays how that it departs from some men as the Glory of the Lord did from the Temple and Altar and Threshold of the house in the Vision of Ezekiel and when the Leafe thus falls and withereth the Tree is Barren and Corrupt for that is the Climacterical time to shew its Disease is Mortal and therefore it must not cumber the Vineyard but be cut down or plucked up by the Rootes But it is high time for us to come to the Power of Godliness which hath so much Goodness in it that it should not be accounted an Offence and so much Wisdom that it should not be accounted Foolishness the Necessity of it is so great that it should not be Delayed and the Excellency so Glorious that it should not be Denied therefore as all men should acquire it for Salvation so our Present Duty is to inquire wherein it Consists and Discovereth it self I have already explained the Phrase that the Reducing of the Habits and Vital Principles of Grace into Act is the Power of Godliness the Philosophy of which Leads us to the Consideration That Habits of Grace are those Divine Qualities infused into the Soul by the Spirit of God which incline the Heart and sway the Conscience to an actual Obedience to the Will of God with Facility and great Delight They are therefore called by the Fathers and Schoolmen the Springs and Fountains of Grace not like the Fountain in the midst of Paradise that flowes with continual waters but like the waters of Siloam that spring from the foot of mount Sion qui non jugibus aequis sed certis horis diebusque ebullit whose Streams are not alwayes Current but in the due seasons of time The musical knowledge of a Lutanist in his Quavers Rests and Motions whereby he is able on all occasions to play those delightfull Airs that commend his skill is the Habit of the Artist but suppose the Hand of the Lutanist be wounded he hath still the knowledge and Habit of his Faculty although the Exercise be prevented by the Indisposition of that necessary Instrument of his musick so the Godly man that hath these principles of a Celestial Original hath upon all occasions his sences exercised by reason of use sutable to those commands the law of God requires and those Emergencies the Providences of God expose him to and although the Acts of Grace may be suspended sometimes by Natural or Civil actions sometimes by inevitable Infirmities yet still he hath a New Nature the Unction of the Holy one and the seed of God abiding in him for our clearer understanding of which we are to consider 1. The Plenty of Godliness consists in the Habits of Graces The Righteous are said to be Trees Planted by the Rivers of water and the Trees of the Lord are full of Sappe The Radical moysture of these noble Vines may Retire to the Root in Winter yet at the return of the Sun they send forth their Grapes in Clusters and their Perfume as the smell of Lebanon as a